Poetry and More

A West Country Christmas, edited by Chris Smith

This is another of Alan Sutton publishing's "Christmas Anthologies," which contain short excerpts of Christmas/Christmastide passages from various British novels, memoirs, and poetry books, with the action taking place in the shire or historical era denoted in the title.

Covering England's "West Country" (Cornwall and Somerset), known for their oft-parodied "z" accents, this particular volume is almost half-filled with poetry from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Herrick, Christina Rossetti, Charles Kingsley, and others. Contributors of prose include Conan Doyle with an excerpt from Hound of the Baskervilles (although it really had nothing to do with Christmas), Agatha Christie (Poirot celebrates the holidays), Daphne DuMaurier, Blackmore's Lorna Doone, and Thomas Hardy.

The Glastonbury Thorn, the legendary tree that supposedly blooms every year on "the real Christmas" (by the Julian calendar, now January 7), has its own chapter, as does the West Country tradition of mumming. Other memoirs tell of old-fashioned Christmases with simple toys and reveling, there is—of course—a ghost story or two, there's a long chapter with Christmas excerpts from West Country newspapers, and even the amazing story of a shepherd who saves 66 sheep from freezing on a snowy night by carrying them back two by two to a barn. Old engravings, photographs, and advertisements complete this interesting volume.